Getting an Earful
Diner is Dotzler's community connection
Morg's is where state Rep. Bill Dotzler gets an earful when he doesn't vote the way other patrons think he should. That happened two weeks after taking office in 1997 when he opposed a Republican-sponsored 10 percent across-the-board income tax cut.
“That same week the Republicans were pushing this tax cut, we received notification in the legislature that our public schools were going to have a $580 million shortfall. We had schools that couldn't pass fire code,” said Dotzler.
Depleting $200 million from the state treasury at this time, with most of the returns going to well-off Iowans, was wrong, Dotzler thought. “I believe you have to hold true to your values, and I don't believe in taking the politically safe vote,” he said.
Delving into the issue further, the blue-collar representative found that the Republican legislative leaders planned a sales tax increase the following year to pay for school repairs. The income tax cut, Dotzler concluded, was really a tax shift.
“Shifting from an income tax to a sales tax to pay for schools meant the tax burden was going to shift from those who had the greatest ability to pay to those with the least ability to pay,” Dotzler said. “I didn't feel that was right.”
His fellow Democratic legislators tried to talk him out of what they considered political suicide.
“They took me in the backroom and said, ‘you know this thing is going to pass anyway so don't throw yourself on your sword,' ” Dotzler recalled.
The tax cut passed 50-0 in the Iowa Senate and 97-3 in the state House where Dotzler was one of the three dissenting votes. Eating at Morg's then proved to be a different kind of dining experience.
“Oh, I heard about that vote all right. People would come up to me and say, ‘Oh yeah, you're the guy who opposed my tax cut,' ” said Dotzler.
Despite their criticism, Morg's patrons, Local 838 members
and most Waterloo voters have decided they can't afford not
to have a stand-up guy like Bill Dotzler as their representative.
